count Rainulf; and, in the origin of society, pre-eminence of rank is the reward and the proof of superior merit (19).* sea. Sicily, Since the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, the Grecian emperors The Normans had been anxious to regain that valuable possession; but their ef- serve in forts, however strenuous, had been opposed by the distance and the A. D. 1038. Their costly armaments, after a gleam of success, added new pages of calamity and disgrace to the Byzantine annals: twenty thousand of their best troops were lost in a single expedition; and the victorious Moslems derided the policy of a nation which entrusted eunuchs not only with the custody of their women, but with the command of their men (20). After a reign of two hundred years, the Saracens were ruined by their divisions (21). The emir disclaimed the authority of the king of Tunis; the people rose against the emir; the cities were usurped by the chiefs; each meaner rebel was independent in his village or castle; and the weaker of two rival brothers implored the friendship of the Christians. In every service of danger the Normans were prompt and useful; and five hundred knights, or warriors on horseback, were enrolled by Arduin, the agent and interpreter of the Greeks, under the standard of Maniaces, governor of Lombardy. Before their landing, the brothers were reconciled; the union of Sicily and Africa was restored; and the island was guarded to the water's edge. The Normans led the van, and the Arabs of Messina felt the valour of an untried foe. In a second action, the emir of Syracuse was unhorsed and transpierced by the iron arm of William of Hauteville. In a third engagement, his intrepid companions discomfited the host of sixty thousand Saracens, and left the Greeks no more than the labour of the pursuit: (19) See the 1st book of William Appulus. His words are applicable to every swarm of Barbarians and freebooters : Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos Confugiebat, eum gratanter suscipiebant: And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy : Pars parat, exiguæ vel opes aderant quia nullæ : (20) Liutprand in Legatione, p. 485. Pagi has illustrated this event from the MS. history of the deacon Leo (tom. iv. A. D. 965, No. 17-19.). (21) See the Arabian Chronicle of Sicily, apud Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. i. p. 253. * This account is not accurate. After the retreat of the emperor Henry the Second, the Normans, united under the command of Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years, when Pandulph the Fourth, prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a foreign dominion: he retired to Aversa; and when, with the assistance of the Greeks, and Their a splendid victory; but of which the pen of the historian may divide the merit with the lance of the Normans. It is, however, true, that they essentially promoted the success of Maniaces, who reduced thirteen cities, and the greater part of Sicily, under the obedience of the emperor. But his military fame was sullied by ingratitude and tyranny. In the division of the spoil, the deserts of his brave auxiliaries were forgotten; and neither their avarice nor their pride could brook this injurious treatment. They complained, by the mouth of their interpreter: their complaint was disregarded; their interpreter was scourged; the sufferings were his; the insult and resentment belonged to those whose sentiments he had deliwered. Yet they dissembled till they had obtained, or stolen, a safe passage to the Italian continent: their brethren of Aversa sympathised in their indignation, and the province of Apulia was invaded as the forfeit of the debt (22). Above twenty years after the first conquest of emigration, the Normans took the field with no more than seven Apulia, A. D. hundred horse and five hundred foot; and after the recall of the Byzantine legions (23) from the Sicilian war, their numbers are magnified to the amount of three-score thousand men. Their herald proposed the option of battle or retreat; "of battle," was the unLanimous ery of the Normans; and one of their stoutest warriors, with a stroke of his fist, felled to the ground the horse of the Greek messenger. He was dismissed with a fresh horse; the insult was concealed from the Imperial troops; but in two successive battles they were more fatally instructed of the prowess of their adversaries. In the plains of Cannæ, the Asiatics fled before the adventurers of France; the duke of Lombardy was made prisoner; the Apulians acquiesced in a new dominion; and the four places of Bari, Otranto, Brundusium, and Tarentum, were alone saved in the shipwreck of the Grecian fortunes. From this æra we may date the establishment of the Norman power, which soon eclipsed the infant colony of Aversa. Twelve counts (24) were chosen by the popular 1040-1043. (22) Jeffrey Malaterra, who relates the Sicilian war, and the conquest of Apulia (1. i. c. 7, 8, 9. 19.). The same events are described by Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 741-743. 755, 756. ) and Zonaras (tom ii. p. 237, 238.); and the Greeks are so hardened to disgrace, that their narratives are impartial enough. (23) Cedrenus specifies the rayua of the Obsequium (Phrygia), and the papos of the Thracesians (Lydia; consult Constantine de Thematibus, i. 3, 4. with Delisle's map); and afterwards names the Pisidians and Lycaonians with the fœderati. the Normans. suffrage; and age, birth, and merit, were the motives of their choice. The tributes of their peculiar districts were appropriated to their use; and each count erected fortress in the midst of his lands, and at the head of his vassals. In the centre of the province, the common habitation of Melphi was reserved as the metropolis and citadel of the republic; an house and separate quarter was allotted to each of the twelve counts: and the national concerns were regulated by this military senate. The first of his peers, their president and general, was entitled count of Apulia; and this dignity was conferred on William of the iron arm, who, in the language of the age, is styled a lion in battle, a lamb in society, and an angel in council (25). The manners of his countrymen are fairly delineated by a contemporary and national historian (26). "The Normans," Character of says Malaterra, "are a cunning and revengeful people; eloquence "and dissimulation appear to be their hereditary qualities: they can stoop to flatter; but unless they are curbed by the restraint of law, they indulge the licentiousness of nature and passion. Their princes affect the praise of popular munificence; the people * observe the medium, or rather blend the extremes, of avarice and prodigality; and, in their eager thirst of wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess, and hope whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress, the exercises of hunt*ing and hawking (27), are the delight of the Normans; but, on pressing occasions, they can endure with incredible patience the inclemency of every climate, and the toil and abstinence of a military life (28).” The Normans of Apulia were seated on the verge of the two em'pires; and, according to the policy of the hour, they accepted the investiture of their lands from the sovereigns of Germany or Constantinople. But the firmest title of these adventurers was the right of conquest: they neither loved nor trusted; they were neither trusted nor beloved: the contempt of the princes was mixed with fear, and the fear of the natives was mingled with hatred and resentment.. Every object of desire, an horse, a woman, a garden, tempted and Leo Ostiensis (1. ii. c. 67.) enumerates the divisions of the Apulian cities, which it is needless to repeat. (25) Gulielm. Appulus, 1. ii. c. 12. according to the reference of Giannone (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 31.), which I cannot verify in the original. The Apulian praises indeed his validas vires, probitas animi, and vivida virtus; and declares that, had he lived, no poet could have equalled his merits (l. i. p. 258. l. ii. p. 259.). He was bewailed by the Normans, quippe qui tanti consilii virum (says Malaterra, l. i. c. 12. p. 552.), tam armis strenuum, tam sibi munificum, affabilem, morigeratum, ulterius se habere diffidebant. (26) The gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix. . . . adulari sciens. . . . . eloquentiis inserviens, of Malaterra (1. i. c. 3. p. 550.), are expressive of the popular and proverbial character of the Normans. (27) The hunting and hawking more properly belong to the descendants of the Norwegian sailors; though they might import from Norway and Iceland the finest casts of falcons. (28) We may compare this portrait with that of William of Malmsbury (de Gestis Anglorum, 1. iii. p. 101, 102.), who appreciates, like a philosophic historian, the vices and virtues of the Saxons and Normans. England was assuredly a gainer by the conquest. Oppression of A. D. 1046, &c. gratified the rapaciousness of the strangers (29); and the avarice of their chiefs was only coloured by the more specious names of ambition and glory. The twelve counts were sometimes joined in a league of injustice: in their domestic quarrels they disputed the spoils of the people: the virtues of William were buried in his grave; and Drogo, his brother and successor, was better qualified to lead the valour, than to restrain the violence, of his peers. Under the reign of Constantine Monomachus, the policy, rather than benevolence, of the Byzantine court, attempted to relieve Italy from this adherent mischief, more grievous than a flight of Barbarians (30); and Argyrus, the son of Melo, was invested for this purpose with the most lofty titles (31) and the most ample commission. The memory of his father might recommend him to the Normans; and he had already engaged their voluntary service to quell the revolt of Maniaces, and to avenge their own and the public injury. It was the design of Constantine to transplant this warlike colony from the Italian provinces to the Persian war; and the son of Melo distributed among the chiefs the gold and manufactures of Greece, as the first fruits of the Imperial bounty. But his arts were baffled by the sense and spirit of the conquerors of Apulia: his gifts, or at least his proposals, were rejected; and they unanimously refused to relinquish their possessions and their hopes for the distant prosLeague of the pect of Asiatic fortune. After the means of persuasion had failed, two empires, Argyrus resolved to compel or to destroy: the Latin powers were A. D. solicited against the common enemy; and an offensive alliance was formed of the pope and the two emperors of the East and West. The throne of St. Peter was occupied by Leo the Ninth, a simple saint (32), of a temper most apt to deceive himself and the world, and whose venerable character would consecrate with the name of piety the measures least compatible with the practice of religion. His humanity was affected by the complaints, perhaps the calumnies, of an injured people: the impious Normans had interrupted the payment of tithes; and the temporal sword might be lawfully unsheathed against the sacrilegious robbers, who were deaf to the pope and the 1049-1054. (29) The biographer of St. Leo IX. pours his holy venom on the Normans. Videns indisciplinatam et alienam gentem Normannorum, crudeli et inaudita rabie, et plusquam Pagana impietate, adversus ecclesias Dei insurgere, passim Christianos trucidare, &c. (Wibert, c. 6.). The honest Apulian (l. ii. p 259.) says calmly of their accuser, Veris commiscens fallacia. (30) The policy of the Greeks, revolt of Maniaces, &c. must be collected from Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 757, 758.), William Appulus (1. i. p. 257, 258. 1. ii. p. 259.), and the two Chronicles of Bari, by Lupus Protospata (Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 42, 43, 44.), and an anonymous writer (Antiquitat. Italiæ medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 31-35.). This last is a fragment of some value. (31) Argyrus received, says the anonymous Chronicle of Bari, imperial letters, Foderatus et Patriciatus, et Catapani et Vestatus. In his Annals, Muratori (tom. viii. p. 426.) very probably reads, or interprets, Sevestatus, the title of Sebastos or Augustus. But in his Antiquities, he was taught by Ducange to make it a palatine office, master of the wardrobe. (32) A Life of St. Leo IX., deeply tinged with the passions and prejudices of the age, has been composed by Wibert, printed at Paris, 1615, in octavo, and since inserted in the Collections of the Bollandists, of Mabillon, and of Muratori. The public and private history of that pope is diligently treated by M. de St. Marc. (Abrégé, tom. ii. p. 140-210. and P. 25-95. second column.) censures of the church. As a German of noble birth and royal kindred, Leo had free access to the court and confidence of the emperor Henry the Third; and in search of arms and allies, his ardent zeal transported him from Apulia to Saxony, from the Elbe to the Tiber. During these hostile preparations, Argyrus indulged himself in the use of secret and guilty weapons: a crowd of Normans became the victims of public or private revenge; and the valiant A. D. 1051. Drogo was murdered in a church. But his spirit survived in his brother Humphrey, the third count of Apulia. The assassins were chastised; and the son of Melo, overthrown and wounded, was driven from the field to hide his shame behind the walls of Bari, and to await the tardy succour of his allies. against the A. D. 1053. pope Leo IX. Normans, But the power of Constantine was distracted by a Turkish war; Expedition of the mind of Henry was feeble and irresolute; and the pope, instead of repassing the Alps with a German army, was accompanied only by a guard of seven hundred Swabians and some volunteers of Lorraine. In his long progress from Mantua to Beneventum, a vile and promiscuous multitude of Italians was enlisted under the holy standard (33): the priest and the robber slept in the same tent; the pikes and crosses were intermingled in the front; and the martial saint repeated the lessons of his youth in the order of march, of encampment, and of combat. The Normans of Apulia could muster in the field no more than three thousand horse, with an handful of infantry: the defection of the natives intercepted their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable of fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the hostile approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or reluctance before their spiritual father. But the pope was inexorable; his lofty Germans affected to deride the diminutive stature of their adversaries; and the Normans were informed that death or exile was their only alternative. Flight they disdained, and, as many of them had been three days without tasting food, they embraced the assurance of a more easy and honourable death. They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended into the plain, and charged in three divisions the army of the pope. On the left, and in the centre, Richard count of Aversa, and Robert the famous Guiscard, attacked, broke, routed, and pursued the Italian multitudes, who fought without discipline, and fled without shame. A harder trial was reserved for the valour of count Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right captivity, wing. The Germans (34) have been described as unskilful in the (33) See the expedition of Leo IX. against the Normans. See William Appulus (1. ii. p. 259261.) and Jeffrey Malaterra (l. i. c. 13, 14, 15. p. 253.). They are impartial, as the national, is counterbalanced by the clerical, prejudice. His defeat and June 18. |